engaging in discussion can come to the best solution and the best answers principally for their own defense. and finally, he says, if the city's going to prosper, if the state's going to prosper and if it's going to survive, it has to effectively form ways of pooling these resources and channeling them into correct decisions. and it's very, very clear throughout he's thinking about national security as the principal thing that people are discussing. and, in fact, we know through quite recent historical research that in prominent greek democracy of this age, especially in athens, when assemblies of people came together and they were discussing issues, very frequently they were discussing questions of war and peace; whether to go to war, whether to make peace and what terms to make peace. and they were discussing deeply and profoundly questions of accountability of their own leaders who were engaged in national security decision making; did they exercise fair judgment, did they do the right thing? and the public, as we know in that era, was a very, very harsh judge of these things. so i think